by James Beamon
Nadi, the cat god, stroked his chin as he spoke to Melvin.
“Tell us, why do you call Cephrin ‘Jason’?”
BY THE TIME THEY WERE done asking questions, Melvin felt drained like he had just taken an advanced placement test. How people could come up with so many questions for someone affecting memory loss was a true test of their creativity. He just wanted to get back to his ugly pink room and collapse on the bed.
Melvin opened the door to his room and saw a man he’d never seen before. Then he realized who he was looking at.
Rich had tamed his frizzled mop of gray hair. Now it was cut short, combed and neat, accentuating dark eyebrows which framed gentle eyes that turned down just a touch at the corners. His long, homeless man beard was gone, replaced by smooth skin that gave rise to a strong jaw and a grin that seemed to hint at something secret. He had traded in the baggy gray robe for a well fitting gray shirt, tucked in neatly at the belted waist of gray cotton pants. The new clothes hinted at a well toned body underneath.
Rich was handsome.
Melvin didn’t mean that. Better... Rich looked better.
Rich put down the book he had been leafing through and smiled at Melvin.
“Finally over, right?” Rich asked.
“Wow,” was all Melvin could say as he stared.
“I see you noticed,” Rich said, rising from the bed. “This morning I decided I’d take advantage of the High Fane’s male attendants.”
“You look better,” Melvin said. “I mean, you clean up well.”
“I had to do something,” Rich said. “I figured with Jason being the Chosen One of Prophecy, somebody had to fight the clichés we’re riding. I’m just doing my part.”
Melvin smiled. The silence stretched between them for long moments.
“So,” Rich said, “did the High Fane tell you it was cool to check out the city?”
Melvin nodded. They also made it clear that Jason couldn’t venture out, but Melvin and the gray robe could come and go as they pleased.
Rich smiled again and his eyes sparkled with mischief.
“So what are we waiting for?”
True to their words, the guards didn’t try to stop or delay the two of them. They functioned more as escorts, guiding the couple through the temple's many corridors and galleries to the entrance.
“How do you think it went?” Rich asked as they walked from the temple's entrance to the base of the hill.
“I dunno,” Melvin said. “I figure they’ll let us go. I mean, you can only say something incriminating if you’re a criminal right?”
“Did you know Menanderus, Ananna and Nadi were three of their gods? We were getting interviewed by immortals—that’s crazy!”
“Yeah,” Melvin said dryly. He was nowhere near as enthused as Rich was with the session. “Like getting the third degree from Peter, Paul and Mary.”
When they reached the base of the hill, it became obvious Nasreddin suffered from overpopulation. Crowds of aians and nasrans milled about densely packed streets, navigating around wagons and stalls and street vendors. It looked like pure pandemonium.
“Awesome,” Rich said, smiling at all the activity. He didn’t say another word. Instead, he grabbed Melvin’s hand and led the way into the crowd.
Melvin allowed himself to be led. Rich went through the streets with enthusiasm. He pointed out the different architecture, homes that varied almost as much as the streets themselves. The houses mimicked nests and caves and burrows and dens, many looking like nature had placed them there without any intervention. They reached the river bridge, where Rich showed Melvin the underwater kelp houses.
Rich’s happy vibe was starting to rub off on Melvin. Now he was also laughing at street performers who juggled or danced. He waved at the aian youths who flitted about overhead or chased each other with cat like agility. He marveled at the giant beehive buildings the nasrans milled about.
This was much better than crashing out on a pink bed. Melvin gripped Rich’s hand a little tighter, silently thankful for the impromptu outing.
Finally, the couple reached a tower. Different than most of the buildings, it didn’t subscribe to a natural aesthetic. The tower shot up into the sky, all stone and mortar. Rich led Melvin into the tower.
Inside, Melvin was surprised to find humans wearing brown robes. Most of them stayed hooded. They looked like monks. One of them, a middle-aged clean-shaven man with his hood down, looked at them with expectation. The interior was nothing ornate, just stone.
“Be right back,” Rich said. It was only then that Rich let go of Melvin’s hand. He went over and spoke to the middle-aged man, who must’ve been the head of the monastery. The brown robe showed Rich to a chair.
Rich created a bowl of water and set it down on the table next to the chair. Then he sat down and closed his eyes.
What was he doing, taking a nap? Melvin looked puzzled at the brown robe, who had already returned to some random task of sorting books. If it seemed out of place for people to stop by for naps, the brown robe didn’t show it.
Rich’s nap didn’t last long. He was awake and on his feet in less than a minute.
“What was that all about?” Melvin asked.
“Just making a call,” Rich said smiling.
“Well, let’s get out of here,” Melvin said. “We can check out the waterfalls.” He grabbed Rich’s hand and turned to go, all too ready to leave the monastery.
But Rich’s body didn’t follow despite Melvin’s grip on his hand. Melvin heard the sucking sound of air getting pulled into a vacuum. He turned and saw the blue and white dazzle of a portal opening.
Melvin was about to protest going through the portal. The last portal didn’t kill him like most times in game, but it didn’t make him a fan of them either. He wasn’t exactly fond of the memory of meeting two mages with murder in their eyes and fire in their hands.
But Rich didn’t make a move toward the portal. Instead, a hooded brown robe emerged from it. The brown robe took down the hood, revealing the last person Melvin expected to see.
The Hierophant Majora looked at Rich with eyes that sparkled and a smile that radiated warmth like an oven.
“Look at you,” she said. Her fingers found his whisker-free jaw and traced the jaw line up until those fingers ran through his hair. “You’re positively handsome.”
“I’m glad you like the change,” Rich said as the Hierophant’s fingers were discovering the shirt fabric and buttons around his chest.
“I do,” she said. “I’m afraid I’m a bit underwhelming in comparison. Brown robes were the best choice in maintaining my anonymity.”
“Brown robes or green nightgown, it’s good to see you, Rew,” Rich said. His eyes softened as he looked at her.
He was calling her Rew now?
“Come,” she said, her fingers weaving their way down to interlock with his. Now Rich had both hands occupied as Melvin had kept hold of one hand while Majora held the other.
“There’s so much to see and do in Nasreddin,” Majora said. She looked at Melvin like she had just noticed he was there.
“Hello, dear,” Majora said, her smile more customer service than it was for Rich. “I trust you can find your way back to the Temple of Houses, yes?”
She didn’t wait for an answer. Instead she spoke to Rich.
“I can’t wait to show you the Ascension Promenade,” she said as she led Rich toward the tower exit.
Rich’s hands pulled out of Melvin’s grasp. He waved goodbye to Melvin, all smiles and happy eyed, before turning his back and heading out the door.
Chapter 25
The Hollow Truth
Mike looked out at the wasteland and grimaced. Now that they had seen how sci-fi The Sprawl’s underbelly was, topside was even more depressing.
Despite the grim view, Mike felt good. He had a lead on finding Melvin, which was something he didn’t have yesterday, voodoo mojo lead or not. Plus the Sons of Kaftar had taken good care of them.
>
The caravan got a serious upgrade. The Sons of Kaftar attached an iron triangle with wheels to the front, which allowed the engine to push aside small to medium chunks of debris without problem. They also loaded two barrels of glow water and an institutional-sized bag of rice on the caravan.
Mike and Ruki both got diskbows and lightning gloves. Ruki had his diskbow holstered at his waist as he steered through Sprawl debris, another tradesman turned warrior-poet in the making.
Mike didn’t know why they called them diskbows. They were more like diskguns. You had to pull the tension spring back and forth until it clicked tight and it shot bladed disks instead of bullets, but it was still more gun than bow.
Runt had declined the lightning gloves. “Grip is bad,” he said after putting on a pair and hefting his Z-blade staff. He didn’t like fumbling with the diskbow tension spring either. But the buff cat aian had a weapon Runt did like, miniature dagger versions of his Z-blade. The aian had given Runt a spare set, which he was sharpening now.
Savashbahar didn’t want any new weaponry. She swore by hexes and since they didn’t have any, she preferred to remain hex dry. Instead, she received a couple of outfits courtesy of the Daughters of Kaftar. It was just in time, as her robe had been beat to shit after the escapades in Maltep and the Hierophane. Now she looked cool, with the leather pants and brassy hardware giving her a vibe of Victorian lady at the Thunderdome. She had body—who knew?
She looked at the Hexenarii tattoos on her exposed arms, shoulders and tummy. “It takes years to earn these,” she said to no one in particular. “Understanding hex purpose, divining intent from its shape, mastering yourself. How strange the marks that men work so hard for and proudly display should be a badge of shame for me.” She looked at Mike and smiled. “Showing them again, after so much time in the dark, it feels like flying.”
Mike returned her smile. Things were looking up.
Well, not for Ruki Provos. He was driving angry. “I can’t believe you have us heading to a place called Start of Dark Wozencraft,” he said. “Fooling with you will likely be the death of me,” he finished, turning to show Mike the sour look on his face.
That turn saved his life. A diskblade shot past, glancing across Ruki’s neck.
Ruki yelled in pain and grabbed his neck. He instinctively ducked, which saved him from another diskblade aimed at his head. The whole crew took cover and looked out at the wasteland.
Whooping and yelling, their attackers broke cover. They rode towards the caravan in small, bug-like vehicles that scurried over the debris on five mechanical legs.
“Clockwound Warders,” Runt said. He would know; he had spent the night trading war stories with the Sons of Kaftar.
“Well, why are they attacking us?” Ruki shouted, looking at the blood on his collar. “Don’t they know we blew up the Hierophane?”
“They don’t care,” Runt said, “Warders have no truck with the mages.”
“Get us out of here, Ruki!” Mike hollered. He ventured a look out of cover and ducked again as three diskblades whizzed by. He popped back up to put his own diskblade into the chest of the closest Warder. That Warder collapsed across the controls of his mechanical bug, sending the vehicle’s legs scurrying into the nearest pursuing bug and forcing both vehicles to crash into a marble pillar.
Little good that did. There were over a dozen more on his side alone. He looked at Runt.
“How many on your side?” he asked as he pumped diskbow tension spring taut.
Runt popped up and down. Two diskblades shot past.
“Nine,” he said.
“There’s a bunch in front of us, setting up barricades,” Ruki said, barely peeking his head over the steering column. “Hang on for a hard left.”
The tank treads squealed in protest as Ruki banked it hard. Mike crashed against the walls of the caravan. His brain raced to come up with something useful.
A hand grabbed the side of the caravan. A goggled face appeared, aiming his diskbow at Mike.
Savashbahar struck with blinding speed, shattering the Warder’s goggles as she stabbed him in the eye with her dagger. She ducked a near-fatal diskblade as she made it back down.
Mike popped up and blasted another Warder who was hanging onto the caravan. “Count your closest side!” Mike ordered.
Runt checked the side, and Savashbahar checked the back. Ruki popped up once, ducked quickly and then popped up again to put a diskblade through a Warder hanging onto the engine before he gave a count of what was up front.
The limited recon produced a count of three on the left, nine on the right and fifteen behind them. Several Warders from the sides had scurried their bug vehicles to the front, where they were trying to put a fair amount of distance between themselves and the caravan.
“They’re setting up another barricade,” Ruki said. “Looks like my only option is right.”
They weren’t just making these barricades because it was fun. The Warders were trying to corral them.
“No!” Mike yelled. “Ram the barricade!”
“Are you mad?” Ruki asked looking more shocked than when he got shot by a diskblade. “If smashing into it doesn’t wholly destroy the engine, it will definitely slow us down enough for these Warders to catch up.”
“Trust me, ram it!”
Ruki raised his head up, then down, then up, then down again. He pulled a lever, and the engine lurched as it gained speed. Ruki yelled over the whine of the engine.
“If we don’t survive this, I’m going to kill you!”
They hit like a missile. The impact came with a deafening boom and an exploding white cloud of dust and rock fragments.
The caravan had pushed through the barricade, but now it was grinding to a halt. The white cloud of dust enveloped everything.
A crowd of Clockwound Warders slowly appeared in the dust fog behind the caravan. They approached the stopped caravan with caution, probably trying to make sense of Ruki’s suicidal ramming.
They were almost upon the caravan when Mike and Ruki popped up from the back. Mike smacked his hands together, activating the lightning gloves. Then he pulled his hands apart and a lethal dose of electricity erupted, blasting through the surprised Warders. Ruki followed up with a lightning bolt from his own gloves, bringing down the rest.
Ruki wiped dust and sweat from his brow and looked down at Mike. “Is every little purple fiber of you packed full of crazy?”
“I’m an unpaid employee,” Mike said. “You get what you pay for.”
“Bravo!” a voice yelled out from the dust cloud.
Everyone on the caravan watched as a shape started to emerge from the fog. The purple robed mage walked toward them, his hand claps jarring in the silence.
“One more turn and you all would have found yourselves at the wrong end of a spike pit,” he said. “It would’ve been a quick death.”
The purple robed mage flashed the perfect-toothed grin of a serial killer. “But where’s the—”
Mike shot his diskbow. Fuck all that talking. If this bastard liked the sound of his own voice that much he could listen to it gurgling.
Whatever the mage was going to say was replaced by mumbo jumbo. He waved his hand and the disk veered off, deflected.
Ruki fired next.
The mage twirled and the diskblade curved around with the mage before finally coming back toward Ruki, who ducked as the blade shot past.
Now the purple robe wasn’t all smiles.
Chains shot out from his sleeves. They wrapped around big chunks of debris. The mage hurled the boulders at the caravan.
The crew jumped off as the boulders crashed into the caravan, sending up a spray of neon blue water and rice.
“Insolent jackass!” the mage yelled. “You will learn to fear me!”
Mike sat crouched behind a crumbled marble wall with the rest of the crew.
“How the hell did this guy find us?” he asked.
In answer to his question a boulder crashed through
the wall they crouched behind, showering them with bits of rubble.
“You can’t hide forever,” the mage said. “Hell, you can’t hide at all.”
They needed to put a little more distance between them and the mage. If he was going to throw stones, he was long on ammo and this wall was short on support. Mike motioned for the others to follow him. He ran in a crouch to another wall twenty yards away.
“Anybody got any ideas on how to bring this guy down?” Mike asked.
Another boulder crashed through this new wall, dangerously close to Ruki’s head.
How’d this guy know where they were in this sea of ruins?
“I can smell your fear!” he yelled at them. “How do you think I tracked you to this wasteland? My dog left a nasty wound, didn’t it love?”
If he was tracking them through fear then the guy essentially had radar. Mike took his team further into the ruins. It wasn’t going to help much, but it would buy them some time.
The mage laughed. “Look at you run, you little twerp! I can smell you. The scent of your fear reeks like alley piss. You’re afraid you won’t see your brother again... and you know something, you’re right.”
“Notice how that fear isn’t of you,” Mike called out. “It’s cause I ain’t scared of bitches in lavender dresses!”
The whole team had to dive out of the way as a boulder came down like it had been launched from a catapult.
“Way to improve our odds, Mike” Ruki said as they scrambled back under cover.
“Leave me,” Savashbahar said. “He tracks us through me, from my fear exploited at the Hierophane.
She looked at them, her face grim. “You all must flee. Where ever I am, the Hollower will find me.”
Mike didn’t want to believe her, but there was no other way to explain how the mage got here. Whatever had gone down in the Hierophane had left Savashbahar with a scent of fear the mage could track til Doomsday. Mike was reasonably sure if everyone else got enough distance the purple robe wouldn’t be able to sense them from their fears.